I-131 treatment

I have a recurrence of folllicular after 7 years remission. It is now in my chest. I did not have another surgery because of its location. Actually, I am rather symptom free. I have had a PET scan which detected it after a high routine thyroglobulin level. Just recently I have had a whole body scan followed by I-131 high dose treatment. My followup scan is next week, but the initial scan was no uptake. If it doesn't uptake, will the dose work at all? Or will it just be slower? It worked the first time, 7 years ago. If it does decide to work, when can some results be expected?I really feel as though I can tell some shrinkage already. Or is that just my imagination?

[amela321]

There are varying opinions among endocrinologists as to what to do with WBS negative, PET positive patients.  Some physicians feel that that is an indicator that the cancer is no longer RAI avid and throwing RAI at it will not be helpful.  There are others, though, who feel that because they scan dose is so low it might miss tumors that are still partially RAI avid (part of the tumor will still take up RAI) and so they give it a try with the high dose RAI.  There is much difference of opinion, even among experts, about this.

You really won't know if the RAI worked at your follow up scan because that will light up whatever was there to start with.  I'm assuming there is another PET scan scheduled for some time after the WBS, but generally, the doctors recommend giving the RAI at least 6 months to do it's job.  

If you google thyroid cancer PET scan you can get a lot of information about cases where PET scans have detected thyroid cancers and what doctors may have done about them.

I'm sorry you're going through this!!

Take care,

Amy
Papillary Thyroid Cancer
First diagnosed 1985
Recurrence 2008